


said it was love and did it for life (did it for you)

by deletable_bird



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Marriage Proposal, No Sex, No Smut, One Shot, Phan Fluff, Phanfiction, Romance, Romantic Fluff, The Amazing Book Is Not on Fire, The Amazing Tour Is Not on Fire, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-18 14:30:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8165248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deletable_bird/pseuds/deletable_bird
Summary: Dan is down on his knees the first time Phil mentions weddings with any seriousness. Fluff, 4.0kThis was nominated for BEST FLUFF in the phanfic awards 2016!





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [Trouble](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcDYTcTXtI8) by Cage the Elephant. Beta'd by the always-wonderful [Laney](https://twitter.com/oftenoverlaps), who puts up with me magnificently. Follow her, she deserves it. (make sure to read the notes at the end once you've finished the fic!)
> 
>  
> 
> [ _disclaimer_ ](http://deletablebird.tumblr.com/d)

Dan is down on his knees the first time Phil mentions weddings with any seriousness.

“We could get married,” he says out of the blue, tone light and inquisitive, saying it like it’s merely a possibility. A topic of discussion that could be interesting. He’s still got his phone in his hand, for God’s sake. They’re supposed to be filming.

Dan glances up, pushes himself to his feet, and tries not to dislodge the pages he’s been so carefully lining up across their apartment. There’s still a hefty stack of them in his hand. A light, kind of flippy feeling is filling his chest, and he’s not looking at the phone camera anymore. He’s looking at Phil’s face.

“What did you say?” His voice comes out a little incredulous, a little raspy with disbelief. Phil raises his eyebrows. He’s fidgeting, barely. Warmth curls through Dan’s stomach.

“We could get married, you know,” Phil repeats, and Dan coughs and glances pointedly down at the entire contents of The Amazing Book Is Not On Fire, strewn meticulously across their floor. Phil shrugs a bit in acknowledgement, lowering his phone. Dan wonders if the video’s still running.

“You have a point, but, you know,” Phil continues, “what’s stopping us?”

“Work,” Dan supplies instantly. The words _’we could get married’_ won’t leave, silvery and rushing and insistent. The back of his neck tingles, and he swallows to try and calm the fluttering inside his ribcage. “The book. Our _careers_ , Phil.”

“You’re so cynical,” Phil scoffs, lifting his phone again. “I was just stating the obvious.”

“Are you still filming?” Dan asks, amused, exasperated. Phil giggles a bit and nods. He looks so _bright_. It’s impossible not to think it a little unfortunate that the camera’s not on him.

Suppressing a smile, Dan casts his gaze heavenward. “You’re insufferable.”

“You love me,” Phil replies. There’s a note of sincerity ringing out beneath the laughter filling his voice.

“I do,” Dan tells him, raising an eyebrow. Phil turns pink and beckons him closer, and, laughing properly now, Dan complies.

* * *

“I was being kind of serious, though,” Phil says later that evening, as if the marriage conversation had never been dropped, let alone for several consecutive hours. Dan groans and smacks him with a pillow.

“I thought you were against talking during movies,” he grumbles, ignoring the _these-are-treacherous-waters-you’re-sailing_ kind of feeling that’s rising in the pit of his stomach. He hits the pause button on his laptop, rolls over away from the screen, and buries his face in Phil’s side. His arm finds a place to rest, slung lazily over Phil’s hips.

“We’ve seen this particular movie about five million times, you know that just as well as I do,” Phil reprimands, his fingers immediately curling up into Dan’s hair, pressing into his scalp. Dan involuntarily melts into the mattress. He doesn’t have any energy left to berate himself for it.

“Kind of being serious about what, then?” he huffs out, voice muffled. Phil’s grip on Dan’s hair tightens gently.

“You know perfectly well _what_ , Dan Howell,” he snarks, and Dan giggles and bites Phil’s side, soft and playful and without warning. There’s a squeal and Phil twists away, and he hoots with laughter and catches the hem of a shirt, yanking them back together. When they compose themselves they’ve ended up facing each other, curled like two opposing question marks. Dan’s entire emotional state right now could be summed up by a couple of soft, warm, opposing question marks. He feels like this a lot nowadays. It’s not always bad.

“You really want to get married _right now_ , do you?” he asks, stealing one of Phil’s hands from the scarce space between them and, absentmindedly, playing with it. He catches a glint of a smile out of the corner of his eyes.

“Well,” Phil amends, “not _right now_. You’re right, we have work and the book and the goddamn fanbase, but, you know.” He pauses. “Sometime. It’d be nice.”

Dan slips his fingers into the gaps between Phil’s. He tries, briefly, to imagine a ring there. It’s definitely a thought to mull over.

“It would be nice,” he ponders aloud. “I think it’d be really nice.”

“I’m glad you agree,” Phil snorts, squeezing his hand briefly. Silence settles between them for a moment, the gentle kind of silence that gives way for comfort.

“Let’s make a pact right now,” Dan says abruptly, letting Phil’s hand go and finding the curve of his jawline instead. “No matter what, no matter when, there will be no cheesy proposals. We’re above that.”

“But Dan,” Phil faux-whines, covering the hand on his cheek with his own, “it’s _supposed_ to be cheesy.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“You love me.”

There’s a pause. They both know what comes next, both remember what was said earlier that day. Their eyes meet as if magnetized, and Dan is suddenly very aware of the light flippy feeling from earlier, taking up the space in his chest in a manner rather akin to hope. He doesn’t dislike it at all.

“I do,” he says back. His voice comes out warm and hoarse and a little too quiet, but it fits.

“Come here,” Phil replies, just as quietly, and then Dan gets kissed so thoroughly that, for a moment, his lungs forget how to breathe anything but love.

* * *

By the time London’s lights have faded away behind them, Dan’s already got his shoes off and his feet tucked up under him. Phil’s slumped against the door on the opposite side of the backseat, and he’s been playing Temple Run for longer than is even remotely reasonable and/or healthy. They’ve only been officially on tour for two and a half hours, and Dan’s already having second thoughts.

Phil breaks the contemplative silence. “Stop obsessing,” he tells Dan brightly, tilting his phone violently to one side and evidently failing to accomplish what he was trying to. He punctuates his previous statement with a disappointed little sound. The game blares out the tinny soundtrack of defeat, and Dan groans.

“You know I can’t,” he says, turning towards Phil. The backseat of the van is small enough that even sat on opposite sides of the car, they’re still very close to each other. Phil is watching him intently, eyes sharp and grey under the passing streetlights. One second his face will be carved out in harsh yellow light and pitch black shadow, and the next he’ll be cast into misty, grey half-light that Dan’s eyes won't quite adjust to.

“I think you can,” he says, reaching out and letting the palm of his hand skim Dan’s knee. The touch is so brief it could be accidental. They both know it’s not accidental in the least.

“Distract me, then,” Dan orders, only half-joking. He turns away so he’s facing the front of the car and letting his head fall back against the headrest, where it’s supposed to go. It’s extremely uncomfortable.

“How do you want me to do _that_ , then?”

Dan can hear the smirk, and taste the innuendo. He sighs, exaggerates it, and can’t find it in himself to suppress a smile.

“You’re disgusting, and also insufferable.”

“You love me.” Phil’s pinky finger brushes his, where it’s resting in the no-man’s-land of the so-called middle “seat” between them. Dan doesn’t bother to finish the little pre-scripted exchange.

“We’re not going to be able to get married for a long time, you know,” he says. Phil makes a little humming sound in the back of his throat. Dan takes it as a cue to continue.

“We’re going on tour, and then after that tour in the US, and then somewhere else probably, and it’s all going to take a very long time and I still don’t know why you decided to bring up _marriage_ of all things right before we knew we were going to spend months away from home.”

“Me neither, really,” Phil says back. He sounds thoughtful, but not in a bad way. His hand ventures back into the no-man’s-land, this time hooking the last two fingers of his left hand with the last two fingers of Dan’s right, and Dan smiles to himself. The thought of feeling a ring every time he takes Phil’s hand crosses his mind again. It is thoroughly unbidden, but he lets it stay.

“Love you,” he says, keeping it quiet and short on instinct. They’re in semi-public, after all.

“You too, you terrible human,” Phil says back. Dan’s smile gets wider. Later that night, he’ll unbuckle his seatbelt and sidle over completely into the no-man’s-land so he can rest his head on Phil’s shoulder (because nowadays the only proper nights of sleep are the ones he gets when he knows Phil’s right there). Phil will tease him about drooling in his sleep, and he’ll probably poke Phil in the stomach in some form of mock-revenge, and then he’ll get an indignant squawk and, a little while later, a kiss on the cheek, and then finally a willing human pillow until insomnia strikes again. For now, though, just being able to hold the last two fingers on Phil’s left hand and know he’s there is more than enough.

* * *

It feels like no time goes by between the UK and US tours. Australia hits so soon after that it all seems properly unreal, but by that time tour things are routine and they’ve started looking tentatively ahead. They’ve known for awhile that the film and documentary are going to be a thing, but very business-y meetings about Afterwards are becoming more and more frequent, and a free night to just potato around and do nothing for hours on end is becoming frighteningly rare for both of them.

Sometimes, Dan will look over at Phil and the word _’marriage’_ will decide to make a grand and usually inconvenient entrance into his current thoughts. Several times, dangerously, it hits him while they’re onstage, knocking the breath out of him like a sucker punch and leaving him trying desperately to regain his voice. Once or twice it rushes in backstage, in the midst of the low light and the unbidden tension before and between. Mostly it decides to visit when they’re alone with each other, barely talking, mostly sleeping. It all seems so easy when life’s like that. While it's happening, it's hard to remember that those moments take up barely a fraction of their lives now.

Australia rushes by in a blur. They film a video, they perform, they meet fans and Dan stops straightening his hair and paints his nails. In the hotel, Phil teases him about just how bad it looks before finally agreeing to clean up the edges with a Q-tip and varnish remover. Dan thanks him with a kiss, and a mild attempt to make less commentary on the mindless film they watch that night. All-in-all, it’s nice. It’s not spectacular. They’re both weary to the bones by the time it’s finally over.

Their flight back home leaves at some ungodly and horrifying hour of the very early morning. They’re waiting to board in a next-to-empty airport, surrounded by several haggard-looking businesspeople and the odd tourist when Phil asks out of the blue, “Does an airport reunion proposal count as cheesy?”

“In every way, shape, and form,” Dan replies, not looking up from his phone. He’s not going to let on about how badly his heart is fluttering at the word ‘ _proposal_.’

“Airport reunions are the best, though,” Phil continues. Resignedly, Dan turns away from the Wikipedia article on swans he'd decided to read for whatever reason, and settles in for a nostalgic monologue. “Or reunions in general. There were a lot of those when we were first spending time together, and we’d take trains and have emotional hellos and goodbyes in public places.”

“No cheesy reunions for you now, sir,” Dan taunts, nudging Phil’s ankle with his shoe. He yawns, and continues. “We live together, remember?”

“I know,” Phil says. He sounds like he’s got more to say. “But you can just see it, can’t you? We’ve had a spat or something like in the movies, only it’s gone deeper, it’s touched a nerve that only we know about. And you walk out on me, of course, all huffy like _I need some time to myself. I need time to think_. And you leave me behind all hopeless, with no choice but to be the romantically inclined hero.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Dan snorts. Phil doesn’t even look at him. He’s gesticulating now, aeons more awake than he was merely forty-five seconds ago.

“So I go running after you, and the camera switches between you walking to a train station looking all moody and gorgeous and me chasing desperately and determinedly behind you, positive I can convince you to be mine.”

“You are _not_ equating our relationship with a terrible angsty rom-com,” Dan scoffs. There’s laughter in his voice.

“Believe me, I am,” Phil argues. “Just listen, okay? You’re waiting all magnificent and poised but broken, like, on the platform, and I burst in just as the train pulls to a halt and I shout your name, and you turn and see me and we make _eye contact_.”

Dan is laughing properly now, barely managing to stifle it. Phil’s eyes are glowing with mirth.

“And I stride over to you all magnificent―”

Dan interrupts unashamedly. “You’ve never strode magnificently in your _life_ Phil Lester.”

“Shut up, okay,” Phil shoots back, “you don’t know me and you don’t know what I can do. I stride over _magnificently_ , all right? And I drop to one knee and say _Dan Howell_ ―”

“Shut _up_ ,” Dan repeats as Phil kind of slithers off his chair and takes up a position somewhat akin to a kneel. He’d pressed up against Dan if it wasn’t for the suitcase leant against the barely-there gap between their seats.

“ _Dan Howell_ ,” he repeats, grinning far too wide. Their eyes meet, and Dan can’t stop giggling. He’s sleep deprived and a little bit in love, and he finds that he rather doesn’t care that they’re in public. “ _You are my light, my life, my everything. I can’t live without you. Will you marry me?_ ”

“Fucking idiot,” Dan snorts. He sounds disgustingly fond. He doesn’t care.

“And you drop to your knees and fling your arms around me and say _yes, yes of course, Phil, I love you too, I don’t know why I ever thought I could leave you, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me_ ―”

“Wow, overkill much?”

“And then the train pulls away and you kiss me in front of it as it speeds off and it’s all beautiful and everyone is applauding.” Phil maneuvers himself creakily back into his chair and takes a mock-bow. Dan’s chest hurts.

“You are the _most_ insufferable,” he laughs, shoving Phil with his shoulder. Their eyes meet again, sweet and meaningful, and Phil spells out the rest of his lines with the warmth that lingers in the corners of his smile, with the crow’s-foot crinkles around his eyes.

Dan nudges his ankle again, and leaves it so their feet are touching. He’d like nothing more than to press himself into Phil’s side, breathe him in and remind him wordlessly that they don’t need reunions when they’ve got each other. For now, though, this’ll have to do.

* * *

On October 5th, 2016, the film and the documentary go up on YouTube Red, and that night they turn off all notifications and book an evening reservation at some obscurely fancy restaurant where nobody will find them. They decide to keep that night for themselves.

The restaurant is fancy enough that it warrants a little bit of a dress code, and Dan spends a bit too long getting ready. This is a kind of closing chapter to one of the best times of his life, so sue him if he doesn’t want to make it a little bit special.

Twenty minutes before they need to be there, Dan comes downstairs to Phil in the bathroom, mouth full of toothpaste. Their eyes meet in the mirror, and Phil raises his eyebrows, nods appreciatively and a little salaciously. Dan rolls his eyes and joins him.

They spend a solid minute stood next to each other, mouths full of mint, watching each other in the mirror. Dan consciously straightens up as soon as he sees his reflection, and Phil makes an indignant, bubbly kind of noise through the foam and rises on his toes. Dan does the same, and gets an elbow in the ribs for his effort. He barely manages to snort with laughter and also keep all his toothpaste where it belongs, i.e. not all over his rather expensive shirt.

Phil drops back down to his heels, eyes fixed on Dan’s in the mirror, and something about his gaze shifts. He bends over, spits into the sink and rinses his mouth out, stands up, and says “Let’s get married.”

Dan’s stomach clenches sharply as soon as the words register, and his hand freezes, toothbrush coming to rest somewhere in the right side of his mouth. It takes him a few seconds to gather enough resolve to move at all. When he finally does, the only reasonable course of action is obviously to burble out an incredulous “What?” through a mouth still full of toothpaste.

Phil snorts as Dan frantically doubles over in an attempt to stop dribbling white bubbles. Once they’re both straightened up again and mostly toothpaste-free, Phil says it again. “Let’s get married. You know, rings, signatures, vanilla old-married-person sex, the whole deal.”

“Are you being serious?” Dan asks, a little breathlessly. His stomach has unclenched, a little bit, and the space it’s freed is filling up with that light and flippy feeling. He feels, rather ridiculously, like a teenager with a crush. In all reality, though, he’s not really that much older than a teenager, and he definitely still has a crush. He’s hopeless either way.

“Very serious, believe it or not,” Phil says, and he braces himself against the counter, still watching Dan intently in the mirror. “We’re turning the page on the metaphorical next chapter of our lives, Dan. What better way to embark on that journey than together?”

“That’s the cheesiest thing you’ve ever said, and you’ve said a lot of cheesy things,” Dan says, unable to keep the blatant disbelief that this might be actually properly happening out of his voice. He sounds thoroughly shocked.

“Maybe,” Phil admits, “but it's supposed to be cheesy.” He glances down briefly and looks back up, and when he does, his eyes are sparkling, bright and lively and hopeful. The corner of his mouth twitches, like he’s nervous, and the enormity of the words he’s probably about to hear hits Dan like a sledgehammer. He tries to catch his breath and fails.

“I know marriage is just a piece of paper and a couple metal bands that you’re, stupidly enough, not allowed to take off, but it’s―it’s nice, in a way. Like you said―like _we_ said, all those months ago, it’d be nice. It’d be really nice. And I really don’t know how to articulate this, and. Well. I―”

Phil takes in a shaky breath, and Dan echoes him silently, unconsciously. He feels rather dizzy.

“I’m in love with you, but like, just a little, you know.” He pauses to smile. Dan’s heart is beating like it wants to fly away. “Anyway, I have been―in love with you, I mean―for a really long time, and I’m like ninety-seven percent sure you feel the same way and I just. Like I said, new chapter. There’s literally nobody I’d rather spend it with, even though you’re terrible and you hog the covers and you talk during movies and you only ever sleep really well when you know I’m there but―I love you, okay, and I. I don’t know. It would kind of make my day―make my life, more like―to be able to call you mine.”

Dan is shaking a little bit. He tries desperately to gather his thoughts, to respond with even an iota of articulacy, and ends up saying “You don’t even have a ring.”

Phil snorts. “You are so _awful_.”

“The very worst,” Dan agrees, and turns into him with fumbling fingers and a fumbling heart. They kiss a little clumsily, because Dan’s still trembling, but Phil tastes like mint and smells like cologne and, underneath, the same kind of warm earthy scent that’s clung to his skin ever since Dan had first had a chance to bury his face into the crook of Phil’s neck and inhale. He digs his fingers into Phil’s waist and clings, and when they pull apart he’s shaking more than ever and he thinks he’s going to cry.

“I _am_ the worst,” he says, and his voice breaks on _worst_ and damn him, damn him and his stupid emotions and his lack of control thereof. He’s going to say this anyway. He’s going to cry but he’s going to say it. “I am the absolute worst, and also a big piece of lazy procrastinating trash and also I love you a lot. Like, loads. I’m not even sure when that happened but I love you more than―well, most things, at this point, and.”

He takes in a shaky breath, fighting back tears― _he can finish this he can he can_ ―and twists his fingers in the back of Phil’s shirt. “It would be really nice to be yours. Please. If you’ll have me.”

“Damn you, Dan Howell, of course I’ll have you,” Phil murmurs, and kisses him again hard and happy and Dan starts crying halfway through and Phil doesn’t pull away for a long time.

When he finally does, they’re pressed against each other head to toe. Dan’s fingers are still locked in the fabric of Phil’s shirt, and Phil’s got his arms warm around Dan’s shoulders. Dan’s breath is hitching a little on every inhale, tiny half-aborted sobs. Phil’s smiling, soft and tremulous, and his heart is beating so hard that Dan can feel it through his clothes, through his bones.

“Of course I’ll have you,” Phil whispers again, and his voice is crumpled but unfolding, delicately. _Paper lanterns_ , thinks Dan, and then he tucks his face into Phil’s neck and breathes him in desperately, breathes him in like adoration.

A kiss gets lost somewhere in his hair, and then Phil’s chin finds a place on top of his head and they tighten their grips, simultaneously. Dan is crying freely, silently, at a rate that’s going to soak the collar of Phil’s shirt. He doesn’t feel like he has to stop.

“We’re in no state to go out now,” Phil mumbles, and Dan lets out a muffled, watery kind of laugh and wipes his cheek on Phil’s shoulder.

“Let’s just not,” he offers up, and Phil lets out a hum of agreement. It rumbles from his chest to Dan’s, and Dan shivers and shuts his eyes and stops trying to wrap his mind around what’s happening.

They don’t make it to their dinner reservation. Instead, they wipe their eyes and order Chinese and watch a movie cuddled up in the lounge. Dan steals all the blankets and talks during the film, and Phil shoves his cold sockless toes under the covers as revenge and kisses Dan to shut him up. They end up asleep on the sofa, tangled together in one big knot of limbs that are going to be horribly sore the next morning, and if they say _I love you_ just a tad bit more than usual that night, well, that’s nobody’s business, is it really?

**Author's Note:**

> The notes at the end, as promised. Let's get straight to the point. Some of you may have noticed I haven't posted anything new phanfic-wise for four months, give or take. Oops?
> 
> My only excuse is that this year I'm taking part in the Phandom Big Bang (if you don't know what that is, click [here](http://phandombigbang.co.vu/)) and that's been taking up the majority of my available writing time. I have actually been writing a shit-ton, more than I've written in many months, and I promise as soon as posting for the PBB rolls around in October and I get that out of the way, things will be busier and better than ever before in the phanfic department (at least coming from me). I have some grand ideas, and they will be put into action as soon as they've become more than, you know, just ideas. They're getting there, I promise.
> 
> Thank you all for bearing with me, and I hope you enjoyed this stupid piece of fluff! If you're so inclined, you can read and reblog on Tumblr [here](http://pianoboydan.tumblr.com/post/151120011487/said-it-was-love-and-did-it-for-life-did-it-for), it would mean a lot! <3
> 
> EDIT: The PBB fic is now up! You can read it [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8478358)!


End file.
